Kill. Kill. Kill.

At the school cooking class last week they made these awesome nectarines filled with amaretti and baked. I thought I could reverse engineer the recipe and make my own because I'm a pretty good cook.

I think I'm gonna be sick now. Note to self - next time ask the damn cooking teacher for the recipe.

While I was making and then eating my unfortunate stuffed nectarines, I watched this week's Eureka. Whoa.

SPOILERS AHOY

The love triangle has been getting old. This season began with a glimpse of a possible future with Jack and Allison in love and building a family. But that future is not to be, because she's back with her ex Nathan. And in every episode it was becoming kind of a stagnant situation. The only way to push the story forward is for something in that dynamic to change - a new love for Nathan, a new love for Jack, or somebody has to leave. It ain't gonna be Jack.

I can see why they let Nathan go, but I did not see that coming at all. But one of the big challenges is how to let someone like that leave the show. They hinted last year that he might leave and go to another city, but that didn't happen and I'm glad that didn't happen. Because when you're working on a sci fi show where people are constantly getting fried or eaten or obliterated by their own creations, eventually one of the main characters has to get it. You shouldn't waste a good opportunity to kill somebody.

And hell, on a sci fi show you can always make up and excuse to bring them back.

What was great about this particular death is that it genuinely moved me. Nathan pulled a Spock maneuver and was every bit as logical about it. And he went out with a smile. I also liked that these two guys didn't need to say anything - they both understood the score.

When Jack tells Allison what happened, he also needs to say nothing. There's lots of unspoken stuff going on here. I mean, really, considering they were using the oldest sci fi trick in the book - the time loop - they really made it work.

END SPOILERS

Compare that with Smallville. One thing that always bugged me about the first three seasons of Smallville was that nobody important ever died. They kept almost killing Chloe, but after a while that threat was kind of useless because you knew they wouldn't actually kill off one of their leads.

But then they got rid of Pete. Remember how they got rid of Pete? He mumbled something about his mom and moved to another state.

On a sci-fi show. About Superman. He moved away.

Now I know they're pros and they make a crapload more money than me and I would kill to have their jobs, but I can't help but feel like they wasted a perfectly good opportunity to kill off a major character, which would have showed us what they were willing to do and given Clark a new outlook on mortality and his place in the world.

Joss Whedon killed off one of the leads in the middle of the first season of Angel. After that, all bets were off. You knew anybody was game, and it made the suspenseful moments much more powerful.

You really can't be afraid to kill people if you want to make us feel something. Thanks, Eureka, for continuing to be awesome.